


Leverage, Season 1, Episode 6, The Stork Job

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Leverage
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s01e06 The Stork Job, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 01, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24388654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode and the rest of the series. Complete.
Kudos: 7





	Leverage, Season 1, Episode 6, The Stork Job

Open to an underground parking lot in Serbia. An American husband and wife confront an older blonde woman and two men in an underground parking lot demanding someone named Luka. The wife is pushed to the ground, and the husband is badly beaten up.

Next, the wife is talking to Nate in Leverage headquarters. She and her husband can’t have biological children, and due to a pot charge from when the husband was in college, they can’t adopt an American child. They were trying to adopt a Serbian boy, Luka, and he got to stay with them for one week before the BGotW kidnapped him back.

The wife makes it clear they want their son, not the money the BGotW stole.

After she leaves, Team Leverage talks. Eliot has a messed up face, and apparently, there was an incident at a lesbian bar. It’s questioned whether the boy was actually an orphan or not, but watching a video the parents took of him, Parker deduces from being a foster kid from who ended up in bad homes herself that the boy definitely came from an abusive place.

The BGotW is a former model and actress who got involved with the Russian mob. Now, she has links on legitimate adoption websites to scam potential adoptive parents out of all the money she can get from them.

Team Leverage heads to a party at an American embassy that the BGotW will be at. Parker is playing a server, and Eliot’s face having healed, he’s flirting with some women. Nate and Sophie are talking to them via earbud, and it turns out they’re not at the party, because, Sophie has history with an ambassador there. I’m not sure why this means Nate can’t be there, but okay. With them, Hardison is doing computer stuff.

They discover BGotW’s goon who’s with her at the party is the one kidnapped Luka back.

Parker is directed to lift the goon’s wallet, and Eliot is told to flirt with BGotW. Sophie says she’ll give him his cues, but he makes it clear he can flirt all by himself, thank you very much.

The goon hits on Parker, and she tries to play it cool, but imaging herself as Luka being kidnapped by him, she ends up stabbing him with a fork before jumping out the window.

I feel bad for her trauma. Watching that wasn’t fun nor was meant to be. However, the stabbing and jumping part was awesome. This being fiction, he so deserved that.

Meanwhile, Eliot convinces the BGotW he’s a rich rancher who’s funding a film. He can only offer a small part, but she earnestly declares there are no small parts.

Over in the building, Hardison is annoyed with Nate and Sophie’s tension-filled dance. He’s found out who the BGotW’s source of orphaned kids is.

What’s awesome about Team Leverage here is: No one judges Parker. There’s some annoyance from Eliot and Nate, but everyone’s essentially just, ‘Okay, our girl stabbed someone, now, how do we work around that?’

Once foursome are all assembled, they try to figure out where to find her, but she’s come back on her own. Aw.

The next day, they trick a producer and director into leaving in order to take over a movie’s production. Nate is playing the eccentric, prima donna director.

When Eliot brings the BGotW, she’s cast as a mother.

Sophie has written ten pages involving the scene between BGotW and the son character, and she’s cast herself as a nun in the film. Heh.

Nate makes the mistake of trying to explain the original movie is a crappy, low-budget horror film involving werewolves that has no emotional payoff, and she’s so offended she might just hand their future daughter a fork and tell her to stab some sense into him.

Then, he tries to delicately bring up the fact her acting sucks when she’s on-stage but can’t bring himself to.

Sophie actually does a good job with her scene, and Hardison and Nate are proud of her. Eliot is confused, and Nate explains, “She can act when it’s an act.”

Next, they inform BGotW her role is jeopardised due to a child actor not showing up. A boy looking like Luka is described, and she assures Eliot and Nate she can bring in another boy to play her character’s son.

This works, but there might be orphan boys who look similar Luka. Would it have mattered to the plan if she’d brought in someone besides Luka?

Parker and Hardison follow BGotW. Parker goes into the orphanage with a headseat, and he watches from the van. She ends up in a room full of dirty kids who give no verbal reactions to her arrival.

When BGotW arrives to get Luka, Parker hides, and either out of fear or kindness or both, none of the kids alert her to Parker’s presence.

Parker and Hardison discover the orphanage is a front for gun running.

After they leave, Parker insists they leave the kids.

Hardison is gentle with her. He assures her not all foster parents are bad, and it’s revealed his Nana is a foster mother he was placed with when he was older.

However, she’s afraid, if the kids are put into the system, they’ll turn out like her.

“I like how you turned out.”

At the now otherwise empty set, Eliot arranges chairs, and Team Leverage sits down to talk. Nate agrees with Parker about leaving the other orphans once they get Luka, though, he does say they’ll come back after forming a real plan, and Hardison continues arguing against this.

The next day, Luka is brought, and Nate asks him in his native language if he’s okay. Luka doesn’t respond, and the scene is explained to BGotW. Her character is to hide Luka during an attack, and when she asks if audiences want to see her die, Nate answers, “Like you wouldn’t believe.” Heh.

The scene plays out, and when BGotW gets up from her death scene, both Luka and Team Leverage are gone.

Team Leverage minus Parker delivers Luka to his grateful parents, and Luka gives a beautiful smile.

Then, everyone discovers Parker isn’t around. Hardison put a tracker in her shoes, however, and she’s going back to the orphanage.

In any other show, this would be creepy.

Over in the orphanage, a gun deal is being conducted, and slipping back into where the kids are, Parker tries to talk to them in their native language. “Don’t be afraid. I will make your tomato shiny.”

She should be proud of herself. If I tried to speak a language I didn’t know, even with a translation dictionary, I’d probably end up saying along the lines of, ‘Be afraid. Me cat restful Martians swimmed.’

Having decided she’s not a threat, the kids laugh.

“Please come with.”

They don’t follow, and she tries, “Men will sadden you.” So, she jumps around and makes motions for them to follow.

Finally, she’s like, ‘Ice-cream?’

This does the trick, but opening the door, they come face-to-face with the goon she stabbed.

“Oh shiny tomato!” Heh.

They might outside the room, he gets her in a chokehold, but seeing a little face peering out the door gives her a burst of strength. Dispatching him, she quietly leads the children around to find an escape, and appearing, Sophie helps.

Outside, the movie stuff is used to trick the gun runners, but once everyone is in the van, guns are aimed, and Parker unflinchingly uses her body to try to shield the children. However, Team Leverage already took care of the guns, and with everyone out good, bad, and innocent out, Hardison blows up the building.

In a warehouse, the kids are sleeping in the van, Eliot is replacing the license plates, and Nate has called the World Health Organisation. They’re going to drop the kids off with them.

I don’t know much about WHO. If this is realistic, I’d still like to know exactly how that conversation went.

There’s a scene of BGotW being arrested due to Team Leverage framing her for stealing.

Sophie, however, is not happy with the rest of Team Leverage. Remember that scene she was good in? Well, it wasn’t actually recorded, and so, she can’t use it for her reel.

Sophie, Nate, and Eliot get back into the van, and Hardison isn’t happy Parker went alone. He makes it clear they’re a team, now.

“We’re a little more than a team,” she says.

In the van, she quietly tells Nate they need to stop for ice-cream, and those sleeping kids are no longer sleeping. Heh.

Fin.


End file.
